Alumni Leaders: Maria Rosario Jackson

Ph.D. graduate of Urban Planning was named to National Council of the Arts

Take a moment and think of a big city. What is one of the
first images to flash through your mind?

A landmark? A building, perhaps?

What about the way certain parts of a city take shape? What
defines them?

Now, think a little deeper. Inside each city there are
different cultures and arts scenes. You thought about it already without
realizing it. You’ve categorized parts of New York based on its boroughs. Los
Angeles can distinctly be drawn into areas based on its neighborhoods. The
differences inside large cities such as New York and LA can oftentimes be
defined by each neighborhood’s arts and culture, making them unique.

The arts and culture inside cities is something we’re always
aware of even when we aren’t specifically thinking about it.

That is, unless you have the same thought processes as Maria
Rosario Jackson.

The 1996 Urban Planning Ph.D. graduate has been viewing
things a little differently than a typical urban planning student might,
focusing her sights on the arts and culture in cities and what kinds of
economic, social and cultural impacts they might have.

“I used to get this a lot – from some colleagues and others who
do research to address urban poverty and related issues — ‘You’re concerned with poor people and low
income communities, so why are you doing this art stuff?’ ” Jackson said. “It’s
not among the most conventional concerns people have when they’re in
professions concerned with the well-being of vulnerable populations, but it is
crucially important. People’s ability to
creatively express themselves and take control of their own narrative is
critical to a community’s advancement and to quality of life. It’s a social
justice issue and an important element of how we should think about equity and
healthy places where people can thrive.”

It was that forward thinking, along the lines of race,
ethnicity and urban revitalization, that landed her in a very prestigious
national role.

Last year Jackson was appointed by President Barack Obama to
the National Council on the Arts.

“These fine public servants bring both a depth of experience
and tremendous dedication to their new roles,” President Obama said in
announcing Jackson’s appointment. “Our nation will be well-served by these men
and women, and I look forward to working with them in the months and years to
come.”

Jackson recalled the time that it took to finally hear the
President say those words.

After receiving “an initial cryptic phone call from the
White House” Jackson had to go through a lengthy background check with the FBI
and then had to be vetted by a group of White House attorneys and ultimately
confirmed by the US Senate. It was a long process that ended with a fantastic charge.
Plus, it was the culmination of a lot of prominent work and high-level
associations that Jackson has been a part of since leaving the UCLA Luskin
School of Public Affairs.

She spent nearly two decades at The Urban Institute, a
Washington DC-based public policy research organization, serving as the
founding Director of the Culture, Creativity and Communities Program before leaving
to serve as Senior Advisor to the Arts and Culture Program at The Kresge
Foundation. Jackson also has served on boards of the Association of Performing
Arts Presenters, the National Performance Network, the Alliance for California
Traditional Arts and on the advisory board for the Lambent Foundation.

Her work at the Urban Institute was especially revolutionary
in how she was able to lead research on the roles of arts and culture in
communities, support systems for artists and arts and cultural indicators,
creating methods to measure community revitalization while participating in
projects about public housing, public education, public safety and parks.

Part of what helped Jackson focus on her research lay in
early focus groups she conducted. Working with local affiliates in seven major
U.S. cities — Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Oakland, Philadelphia, Providence
and Washington DC — Jackson identified areas to measure the presence and
impacts of arts and culture in communities.
As revealed in an interview on the National Endowment of the Arts
website, “One of the most effective questions was ‘What do you miss the most
when you leave?’ … People would talk about … a particular type of music or
food, or even the architecture that was specific to a place. … It’s almost as
if you needed that distance to be able to see what really mattered.”

While Jackson’s Urban Planning Ph.D. didn’t exactly follow
the same path that others had gone down, her time at the UCLA Luskin School
encouraged her to explore her own path within the realms of Urban Planning.

“I think that the preparation I received at UCLA was, in
hindsight, extraordinary,” Jackson said. “It prepared me for many different
kinds of options. More than anything, because of the mentors that I had there.
There was a terrific set of people who were open to new ideas and who were
eager to continue to ignite thoughts and ask questions that they hadn’t really
wrestled with.

“The topic I took up was kind of a hybrid when I was there—comprehensive
community planning in multi-ethnic contexts. But I didn’t find a lot of
resistance to it. My experience was healthy because professors and peers pushed
me to clarify my ideas. I was able to be creative and rigorous in my program
and it launched me into a career that continues to demand creativity and rigor
as well as leadership and good judgment.”

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